There are a lot of snide remarks in that answer, however, detracting from otherwise great information. (Eg what does the Dalai Lama and Uighur oppression have to do with this?)
Something I found amazing (horrific) when reading the article: what if this writing only sounds snide to us, but not to others? Consider your examples:
> Some of these Uyghurs, Kazakhs are sent to the reeducation camps and they are forced to learn Mandarin Chinese and the latest drip irrigation techniques to save water and reduce costs. Moreover, each village is assigned with one or more communist party members to guide them through to make sure that they don’t mess up the newly cultivated land.
> I mean, the Chinese government has also forced Tibetans to build a massive amount of greenhouses on the Tibetan plateau. Those Tibetans have no time to go to temples for worshipping any more, instead, they have to work in the greenhouses taking care of tomatoes. This is why Dalai Lama is not so happy to hear this.
This is horrific and dystopian to me. But imagine if you believed the Uyghurs/Kazakhs are inferior peoples, and that Tibetan temples/monks are evil. You could read these paragraphs and consider all of this to be positive. I wonder how popular that type of thinking is in China.
That's a big stretch. More likely that
1. The author, like many Han Chinese people, was raised in a completely atheist environment, and just don't put any value on religious activities at all.
2. Again, like in many East Asian countries, Chinese people value/praise hard work above "enjoying life".
So, what you see as horrific and dystopian is seen as progress and a sign of a thriving community.
The snark likely comes from the fact that Xinjiang is consistently portrayed in Western media as a nightmarish, dystopian, Orwellian hellhole suffering under the iron fisted oppression of the Communist Party. They ignore the very real benefits that have been afforded to millions of poverty-stricken people in Xinjiang via progressive government policies, while tunnel visioning solely on human rights abuses.
The western media does report those things, it’s just that the Chinese media only focuses on those pieces from the western media that it wants to be defensive about. Call it tunnel tunnel vision if you will.
I honestly can’t remember the last time I saw a sensational exposé about alleviating poverty through technology-driven, sustainable farming in Xinjiang, in a mainstream publication. On the other hand, I don’t have enough hairs on my head to count the number of condemnations and denouncements.
This is likely the cause of frustration that you see seeping through in answers such as the one posted.
This is just a bullshit way of justifying oppression using the economic development they would have received anyway.
People make the same absurd arguments about slavery, and lack of suffrage, and it’s just as obviously bullshit in those cases as it is in this one.
"Tibet used to be a feudal serfdom with the Lamas lording over everyone else. Most Dalai Lamas were murdered by their rivals for control over the country. So yeah, of course the Lamas are upset that they're no longer in power."
"I’m of the opinion that it’s impossible to achieve economic progress with social upheaval, threats of separatism and terrorist attacks. Economic progress is incompatible with the others.
It's the extreme poverty and lack of economic opportunities which drive destabilizing forces such as these.
Prosperity by means of terrorism then separatism is the path offered by the WUC and ETIM.
Prosperity by means of forced “re-education” in vocational skills and poverty alleviation plans [1] is the one offered by the CCP.
I think it’s the CCP’s gambit that when there is economic prosperity in the region, there will be room for expanding human rights. There won’t be a need or desire to separate from a system which you are actively benefiting from and when that threat goes away, so do the armoured patrols and surveillance mechanisms.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/china-poverty-xinjiang/china...
Your right to have good public transit is being violated by someone else's right to not have a rail go through their lawn. Protect that man's right to a lawn at all costs.
I’m of the opinion that it’s impossible to achieve economic progress with social upheaval, threats of separatism and terrorist attacks. Economic progress is incompatible with the others.
It's the extreme poverty and lack of economic opportunities which drive destabilizing forces such as these.
Prosperity by means of terrorism then separatism is the path offered by the WUC and ETIM.
Prosperity by means of forced “re-education” in vocational skills and poverty alleviation plans [1] is the one offered by the CCP.
I think it’s the CCP’s gambit that when there is economic prosperity in the region, there will be room for expanding human rights. There won’t be a need or desire to separate from a system which you are actively benefiting from and when that threat goes away, so do the armoured patrols and surveillance mechanisms.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/china-poverty-xinjiang/china...
Because if we’re going to go down that road, I have to warn you that the Xinjiang story is not nearly as black and white as the British, Dutch or American stories.
> nothing in history has shown that China is any better at colonizing lands than the west
I agree - I guess historically speaking, China just hasn't colonized enough countries to have a decent sample size.
China didn't really colonize, if colonization means to move there and enslave the natives.
And I'm sure that many folks made the argument that Africans working on plantations in the South had a higher standard of living than where they came from.
That’s because it is, and if you visited you wouldn’t be so flippant about it. In large part because a tourist can’t even make a stop in the area without getting their own personal police minder.
It’s little different than North Korea.
That is not to say there isn’t a problem, but hanging out in Urumqi is definitely nowhere near as interesting as hanging out in Pyongyang.
Tibet is much harder to visit, foreigners have to apply for a permit (which you don’t need to visit Xinjiang).